For the Widows in Paradise
by PachucaSunrise
Summary: After 20-odd years of constant death and resurrection, you'd think it would be easy to deal with the death of someone else. Kenny McCormick begs to differ.


**A/N: **Um... hi.

To anyone who cares or has been wondering: I'm sorry I haven't uploaded anything in awhile. I'm also sorry that this story is nothing like my previous works. I started on-off writing this mostly as a way to vent over the recent deaths of some family members, so that should... probably clue you in on the subject matter. Just a heads up there.  
>But it's not all depressing. Really. If any of you actually take the time to read this behemoth, I thank you in advance from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.<p>

The boys are all in their early-to-mid-20s here.

**Warning: **Character death, strong language (it's Kenny, after all), passing references to sex. Oh, and fucked-up syntax all over the place, but once again, these are Kenny's writings.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own South Park, "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" by Sufjan Stevens, or any other media I reference here.

**For the Widows in Paradise**

"_There's a bit of magic in everything, and then some loss to even things out."_

_-Lou Reed_

I don't even know why I'm writing this. I guess I'm writing it mostly because Stan and Kyle told me to. They gave me this journal, one of those notebooks with the thick off-white paper and old leather covers, and they also gave me that look. I think you know the one I'm talking about. It's the kind of look rich people have when they see someone really poor lying in a puddle of their own piss or shit and they try to act like they know how that person feels when they really don't and they're upset when they see it but not upset enough to dirty their hands helping them. That's Stan and Kyle. So I guess that makes me the poor guy in a puddle of my own piss. It's happened before but that's not what I'm here to write about.

I'm writing because Stan and Kyle told me to and even if they looked at me like I'm some smelly old fuck with nowhere to go in life, at least they looked at me and there's only really been one other person who's ever looked-looked at me before but he's gone now. Shit. I lied. I know why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because I have a lot of things to say for once and no one left to say them to.

-K

**xx.**

It's been two days since I got this and I actually haven't written anything yet because I've been trying to do everything but think. You'd figure that would be easy for me because I dropped out of school and before that I hardly did anything but smoke weed and draw dicks and tits all over my tests but I'm not like that. I've never been like that. I think a lot because I have to and because life has always given me a lot of things to think about. Why can't I die? Why doesn't anyone ever remember? Why is he gone and why am I still here? I have a fuck ton of questions but I don't have any answers for anything. Still I try to figure them out even if it drives me crazy on the inside. But I'm not crazy, or not _that _kind of crazy I guess, on the outside, so people just think I don't think. Even if I wasn't like this it would still be hard not to think about what happened because every goddamn person I know keeps reminding me about it.

They say: I'm sorry for your loss. They say: I know exactly how you feel. Sometimes they don't say anything and they just give me the poor-guy-in-a-puddle-of-piss-and-shit look like Stan and Kyle.

And I say bullshit! Okay so I don't actually _say _that to them because it would probably piss them off but that's how I feel. It's what I say in my head and I say it over and over until my mind's voice is raw and bullshit doesn't sound like bullshit anymore. I say it until it's written all over the walls of my insides like graffiti. I say it like I'm standing on the tallest top of the tallest mountain and screaming from the lowest bottom of my lungs. Bullshit! Bullshit! Hell even writing it makes me feel a little better. But not by much.

Anyways I guess what I'm saying is that I know when people say bullshit like that they're actually trying to help but no one can really know 'exactly' how anyone feels unless they've been through 'exactly' the same things as they have. And that doesn't happen. I don't know 'exactly' how anyone feels because I haven't been through 'exactly' the same things as they have. But I've been pretty fucking close. I know what it feels like to see my insides on the outside and get hit by a train and crush all 206 bones in my body and wake up the next day like nothing happened and it's just another episode in the fucked-up sitcom of my life. Also I know what it feels like to lose someone I loved more than anything else and maybe I don't know 'exactly' what it feels like to lose everyone who's ever been special to anyone but I can come close. So maybe if anyone else ever reads this they'll be able to almost-'exactly' know how I felt in South Park in the summer when I lost him. And maybe that's good enough.

Shit shit shit I'm thinking too much again.

-K

**xx.**

So it's been another _ days since I last wrote and I'm living life like it's Almost Normal even though it's really really not. I'm not going to give a rat's ass about putting dates on these because every day is the same old shit over and over and over again and it doesn't matter that I punched a hole in the plaster wall on Monday the 8th or that I saw Clyde Donovan in the bottle-return line at Wal-Mart on Wednesday the 10th and his Mom says 'sorry for your loss' because the same thing happened every other day before that. Jesus it's almost like Groundhog Day. I guess that makes me Bill Murray. Except I don't think Bill Murray's love interest ever died so maybe I'm not Bill Murray after all. I guess I'm just me.

Every day since then goes like this: I wake up, jerk it a little if my dick's not feeling as fucking pathetic as the rest of me, have powdered eggs and powdered milk (the real breakfast of champions), go to work until an hour earlier than I usually work because my boss feels bad for me, then come home and wipe the grease off and go to bed without saying anything to anyone. Then if my brain's somewhat functional I'll write in this notebook for awhile, which is what I'm doing right now. Then if my heart's somewhat functional I'll cry for awhile, which is probably what I'll be doing later even if I don't want to because I can just feel it.

I'm still trying not to think about it but I think about it anyway. A lot of things remind me of him. Stupid stupid things and I don't know why they remind me of him but they do. Like a few hours ago the sun was setting and the sky was all orange-blue and the flowers and the houses and the mountains were all kind of orange-blue too and it looked like the whole world had gotten its shit together for a few minutes and I just thought 'if he was here, he would love this so much' and then it felt like a pack of wolves tearing my chest open. My 8th grade English teacher would call that a hyperbola (hyperbole?) because it's an exaggeration but I call it real life because it's happened to me before. If my life was an original movie I think I'd call it _Life's a Bitch and Then You Die… Over and Over Again. _If Rob Schneider had dramatic acting chops and I had Kyle's Jew genes then I'd have him play me. But I think I'd settle for Morgan Freeman because it would be funny as shit. Or bring back Humphrey Bogart from the dead because he's a badass. Or maybe I'll have all three. Rob Schneider can play the funny parts, Morgan Freeman can do the narration, and Humphrey Bogart can do the love scenes. I'll hop onstage and wave my gold Oscar in the air and yell, BILL MURRAY CAN SUCK IT! And everyone back home will huddle around their TV sets like they've done for their entire lives and they'll see that the boy who taught them everything they knew about sex in elementary school and hardly said anything had thoughts and feelings and a life and a love too, just like them.

I'm getting tired now so I think I'll stop here. And I won't put the date or the time or anything else like that because it doesn't help to almost-'exactly' describe what I'm going through. But the funeral is tomorrow and it'll be another _ days before I get over this.

-K

**xx.**

Oh God I went to the funeral today and it went pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to go except 100000x worse. And that's not a hyperbola either. It really was that bad. Of course I was expecting it to be bad and so was everyone else because as soon as I showed up they all looked at me like maybe I'd been rolling in my own piss recently and got their heavy-duty boxes of Kleenex out just in case.

They said: I know how much he meant to you. They said: he's looking down on you from Heaven right now, he loved you so much, I hope you know that.

And I just said thank you because what else was I supposed to say? 'No, you don't know how much he meant to me because you didn't know him, not like I did, and you don't know me either'? Because that's the truth but I don't think it would've been helpful even if I felt like saying it. I felt like doing a lot of things. I felt like kicking down the chairs and ripping all that Kleenex to tiny little shreds and yelling into that casket, wake up wake up wake up _please!_ But I didn't do any of that. Instead I just stood there and pretended to listen and cried as quietly as possible even though my chest felt really tight and my eyes hurt and I wanted to cry so much harder. Shit I could've cried enough tears to fill about five hundred Stark's Ponds but I didn't, I didn't. I thanked Stan and Kyle for the notebook and skipped the wake to go home and smoke and drink until I could die from alcohol poisoning and hopefully this time I'd go to Heaven because that's where he has to be and hopefully I'd stay there with him forever. I'd find him there and I'd wink at him and say something like 'looks like God's favorite angel has come home again' and he'd blush a little like he always does when I flirt with him and we'd kiss and even God himself would cry a few Stark's Ponds because it would be that beautiful. But I didn't die of alcohol poisoning so I just woke up a few hours later in the bed of my Ford with a godawful hangover that was even worse because my head was all stuffy from crying so much. At least someone bothered to put a blanket over me. That was nice.

-K

**xx.**

Woke up this morning in my own bed and I tell you it was the damnedest thing (who even says that anymore?) because for a few seconds everything smelled like sugar cookies and good memories and sweat and when I looked over I swear I saw blonde hair and blue eyes and heard a sleepy voice, _mmm, good mornin'_, but as soon as I tried to move it was gone. All of it. I don't know how to describe it except that at first it was like seeing everything you'd ever wanted but never had and at the same time seeing everything you've always had but never realized you wanted, and then it was like that moment when you wake up after a night of hard partying and you're in someone else's bathtub and there's smeared coke lines everywhere and you have no idea where or who the fuck you are. My 8th grade English teacher would just call that a crappy-ass metaphor.

Tried to go back and reread the above paragraph – can't because it's all runny and there's big wet blotches making the words hug and hold each other's hands. But that's okay. I know what I wrote there and for some reason I don't think I'll ever forget it.

-K

**xx.**

Today I was fiddle-fucking around with the radio in my car until I found a station that wasn't static and came in just as they were starting to play "Pale Blue Eyes" by The Velvet Underground. Now I don't know if that song means anything to anyone else in the world but I'll tell you this: I heard the first few lines of the song and kind of recognized it but when that Lou Reed guy started singing I _really _recognized it and was this close to driving off the road. Not because it's so weird to hear that song on the radio or that it's really loud or anything. It's just that it brought back a lot of memories. Well, mostly just one.

The first time I heard it was seven years ago at Craig Tucker's New Years Eve party. Mostly everyone was on the main floor or in the bedrooms doing their own types of dancing and Cartman and Kyle were sobbing and hugging each other on the kitchen counter, drunk as skunks, and Stan was off somewhere trying to convince some guys that it probably wasn't a good idea to give alcohol to the pets. So I went down into the basement to see if I could maybe chat up a hot girl or two. And yeah there were a few of them down there but they honestly weren't that hot and they were already taken anyway so that only left me one other option. He was sitting on a futon couch with an almost full cup of beer in his hand and a really scared-ass look on his face but when I walked over and sat down next to him he didn't look so scared anymore. He looked at me like I was someone I could trust. Like I could be everything to him. Which was nice because I had never been anyone's anything before. I just was.

I know that we talked for a long time but I'm not sure what we talked about except I remember making some joke about Cartman's ass and him laughing so hard he almost fell off the futon and me thinking 'oh my God, he's the best thing ever'. But that's okay because it wasn't the important part anyway. The important part is that one thing led to another and his hand on my knee somehow led to my hand on his face and that led to me kissing him into the tie-dyed cushions while Craig's iPod speaker thing started playing "Pale Blue Eyes". And let me tell you, it's really fucking great music to kiss to because you can just kinda-sorta listen to it or really listen to it and it still has almost the same effect. It's slow and repetitive and mesmerizing and long and doesn't draw too much attention to itself which is good when you're kissing someone and just want to focus on them. But then you can listen to it by yourself sometime later and still be amazed by it. Craig is one of the most boring douches I've ever met but he has decent taste in music.

"This could be our song, ya know," he said when I started kissing along his neck. Then he took my chin in his hand and sang to me that line, _linger onnnn, your pa-ale blue eeeeeeyes, _and I probably would've laughed for the rest of the night if he hadn't kissed me again.

When we started going out later that year he bought that entire album even though it's like 20 years older than either of us and we listened to "Pale Blue Eyes" together. That's when we heard the lyrics and realized it wasn't exactly a love song:

_Sometimes I feel so happy,  
>Sometimes I feel so sad.<br>Sometimes I feel so happy,  
>But mostly you just make me mad.<em>

The ironic thing about all this is that even though it's a song about two people breaking up it's actually what brought us together in the first place. See what I mean about how it's bullshit when someone says they know exactly how you feel? No other person in the entire world knows 'exactly' what it's like to make out with someone you really really like on a futon in some loser's basement while _The Velvet Underground & Nico _plays in the background and to hear it again for the first time years later and feel like you're living that moment all over again but from a different angle. It's like the reverse of those lyrics: sometimes it makes me sad that no one else knows what that feels like and sometimes it makes me mad because I'll never really be able to live it again. But mostly it just makes me happy because at least I got to live it once.

-K

**xx. **

I don't really know what to write here because nothing's changed. Stan and Kyle still give me that look and Clyde still passes on messages from his Mom at the bottle-return line and my boss still lets me go home early and every day I have to remind myself that I'm alive. So I think I'll write some more about the past because it's a helluva lot better than the present and I think it's important that you know about what happened back then because without it, you can't understand what's happening right now.

Anyways me and him, we weren't like most couples. I'm pretty sure every couple that's ever been in love and known what it's like to talk about someone all the time and not run out of things to say would tell you the exact same thing but I think that's bullshit. It's harsh but it's true. See I'm what most people would call 'a shoulder to cry on' because I don't talk a lot and when I was a kid no one knew what the fuck I was saying when I _did_ talk so they would come talk to me about the things no one else would listen to. Sometimes you just need someone who'll listen and not talk. And for everyone in South Park, I was that guy. I can tell you exactly how many times Wendy Testaburger broke up with Stan in middle school and the names of all the girls that wouldn't fuck Cartman because he was a fat sociopath with an awkward phase and I could probably tell you a little secret about everyone else in this stupid hick town. Shit I've even had a beer with Mr. Marsh and listened to him rant about Mrs. Marsh a time or two.

And in all these times that I sat there and listened and didn't talk I realized a lot of couples have a big problem. Well a lot of couples have a lot of little problems that can add up to big problems but I noticed one really fucking huge problem that every couple has except us. You know what it is? It's communication. Or lack of communication. No one really talks to each other anymore, or not about the important things at least. People will jump at the chance to talk about themselves and their problems but as soon as you try to tell them about yourself and your problems their eyes glaze over and they don't really listen. Or they listen but they don't care so you might as well be having a deep philosophical conversation with a wall. They never really listen to what other people have to say, including for some reason the people they love. And then they're all surprised when the relationship doesn't work out or their loved one hooks up with the former captain of the cheerleading squad at a local dive bar and they run away with her because she doesn't talk for two fucking hours about Grey's Anatomy last night and actually remembered their birthday. I've seen this happen over and over and over again and sometimes I just want to yell at them until they listen to me for once. Wake up wake up wake up _please!_

But I guess my point is that we never had that problem. We could talk to each other all the time about anything and never run out of things to say. We listened and our eyes didn't glaze over and years later we remembered all the details, even the stupid ones. Maybe it was because no one had ever listened-listened to us before so when we met each other and both realized that the other was someone who listened-listened we knew that we could talk about anything we wanted and it would be okay. We fell in mutual amazement and called it love.

Speaking of love there were a lot of people at his funeral who said they loved him very much and I wasn't sure if I should believe them or not. So many people wait until someone's dead to say nice things about them and it really fucking gets me down because all I can think about is how happy it would've made him if they had actually told that stuff to him when he was alive. But no one does that. No one.

It's funny because when someone dies, everyone else does the same exact things they do in a relationship. They're quick to tell you things like 'I'm sorry for your loss' or 'I know exactly how you feel' or 'they're in a better place' but what happens when you tell them all about your loss? When you tell them exactly how you feel? When you tell them that you wish they weren't in a better place because all you want is for them to be here in this place with you? They don't know what to do with that so they don't do anything at all. They just can't handle it. People are scared shitless of death and I can understand that because I still am too believe it or not. Sure, when I die I'm always back by the next day but it's one thing to feel your own heart stop and it's a completely different thing to know someone else's heart has stopped and you used to know what it felt like beating against your cheek or the skin on your palm. I can't handle it either. I don't think anyone can.

-K

**xx.**

I was going through the contacts on my phone earlier so I could call Stan and Kyle who left me about 20 voicemails I've never listened to, but I didn't call Stan and Kyle. Maybe it's fate or maybe it's intuition or maybe it's something else deep deep down in the layers of my mind but I saw his name on there and I clicked on it and then I was listening to his answering machine. I couldn't just listen to it once though so I ended up listening to it infinitely even though it hurts and God it was just so fucking weird too. 'Hey there! This is Leopold Stotch. Sorry I can't be at the phone right now, but I promise I'll call you back as soon as possible!'

Before I knew it I heard the beep of the answering machine and for a minute I thought about just hanging up because it was pointless and he couldn't hear me now and he wouldn't hear me ever. But I didn't. For some reason I didn't. Words came to me from every corner of my memory even the ones far far away and they wouldn't stop. I apologized for that time I threw a ninja star in his eye and I thanked him for all the days when my stomach wouldn't stop rumbling at school and he would give me the best part of his lunch without saying anything because he knew it would embarrass me and I told him about how I'd been thinking of ways to propose to him for months before he died and it would have been so perfect, I would have found a way to get the best ring possible no matter how much work it took or what I'd have to sell and I'd get down on the right knee at the right moment and hopefully then his parents would look at me with even 1/900th of the love he looked at me with every day.

When I said everything I'd wanted to say my throat was dry and scratchy and I just sat there and realized I wasn't hardly any better than all the people saying nice things at Butters' funeral that they'd never even thought of saying when he was alive. Sure, I told Butters I loved him almost every day for the last five years and when I didn't say it I tried to show it because I've always been better with actions anyways, but there was so much I never got to say to him and goddammit why had I never told him all of that? I'd like to say I don't know the answer because the answer is something I can't change. But I do and here it is: I never told him any of that because I never thought I'd have to. I never thought there wouldn't be a day when I couldn't wake up and tell him whatever the hell was on my mind. I never thought I wouldn't get the chance to do all of the things I wanted to do with him. Me of all people should've known that anyone can die at any time but I didn't, I didn't, I couldn't, I just never thought about that or at least not enough to actually do something about it. The thing about love is that it makes you blind to everything else and most of the time it's a blessing but it's a blessing we take for granted. We're hard-wired to not think about death and to think that we'll just live forever and when you realize it's not true, it's like seeing everything you've ever believed in being torn apart and smashed to pieces and rebuilt into something else in the blink of an eye. But what if we were hard-wired to think about death all the time? Would we live any more or any less?

Sometimes I just feel like a big question mark. I have a vision of myself or maybe it's a nightmare but when I think of myself in the future I see someone with only a cell phone and a song and memories and too many regrets. I have so many fucking regrets.

-K

**xx.**

_It's a little after 6 AM and the phone is crying at me louder than anything I've ever heard. I don't know what waits for me on the other end of the line and maybe if I knew then I wouldn't have picked it up, but I'm so fucking tired still and the light coming in through my bedroom window is soft and blue so I don't think anything can be wrong. But there IS something wrong and I know it as soon as Mrs. Stotch starts talking because her voice sounds like screeching tires and beer bottles being thrown at walls and bones shattering and a final breath and I know what that sounds like better than anyone._

_I ask, When did this happen?, because it's the only sound I can make that isn't a scream._

_Last night, she says. _

_The phone falls out of my hands and my hand falls on my face and my heart falls out of my chest. I sit down on the edge of my bed and see nothing and say nothing and think nothing and do nothing. I am nothing._

_Everything stops._

_-K _

**xx.**

A few hours ago I went to the cemetery and had a good hard think even though Mr. and Mrs. Stotch told me not to. They told me that they hadn't wanted me around their son when I was alive and I was an idiot if I thought they'd let me around him now that he was dead. That's what they said to me before the funeral but I went anyway back then and I'm going anyway right now because that's what Butters would've wanted. Butters could see the good in anyone and he had been the first and maybe really the only person to see the good in me so I don't know if I can blame Mr. and Mrs. Stotch for thinking I'm bad. Sometimes I can't find the good in me either.

They haven't liked me for a long time. You could say they haven't liked me since pretty much day one and that's true but it really started one night after we had been going out for a few years. Basically, Mr. Stotch walked in on us in Butters' bedroom. That sounds a lot worse than it actually was. We weren't fucking, which is hard to believe for some people. Just kissing. And we hadn't even been doing that for very long. Before that we'd been talking hours and hours about things like college and our future and what color our house would be. Things like that. Things I'd never thought about before I fell in mutual amazement with him because before I fell in mutual amazement with him I thought my only education would be a bottle of scotch and my future would be the train tracks next door and the color of my house would be an ugly green, which is the color it is right now. Sometimes I wonder if Mr. Stotch would've reacted better or worse if he'd walked in during the talking instead of the kissing. Probably worse. Because it's one thing to see two people kissing on a bed in the present and it's another thing to know they plan on kissing at an altar in the future. I think he's scared of the future. I think he's probably scared of dying too.

So we were kissing on his bed real slow and my hand was just starting to move lower. That's when Mr. Stotch came in of course. Butters scooted out from under me when he saw him and sat on the edge of the bed, looking embarrassed, but not really ashamed or anything. I just looked over at the doorway and maybe clenched my fists a bit because I'm Mysterion and I've kicked an ass or two in my day but mostly because I wanted to be the tough boyfriend you know? The kind of boyfriend he deserved. But Mr. Stotch didn't see it that way. This was the first time he'd ever seen us together like this because we'd been keeping it a secret from Butters' parents. Especially him. And for good reason. He looked like the characters in those old cartoons when they get angry. Their face glows bright red and smoke starts coming out of their ears and there's whistling in the background. Except the characters in the old cartoons never yelled about how they don't want me turning their son into some filthy faggot and why they don't want to see my face in their house anymore and what they'll do if I'm not gone by five minutes from now. They probably stormed out and slammed the door behind them though.

Now normally I'm a pretty chill guy but this had me pissed off beyond belief. Really pissed off. It was the kind of pissed off that feels like it's been building up inside you since the day you were born or even earlier. Like maybe there was some leftover anger in me from the very first time a human being ever hurt someone else and it just kept snowballing and snowballing inside me all throughout history, getting bigger and bigger every time someone hurt someone else until it formed this big pissed-off lump in my chest that made _me _want to hurt Mr. Stotch. But Butters didn't want that. He unclenched my fists and put his fingers in the spaces between mine and said that it's 'no biggie'. That both his parents have suspected he was gay for a really long time (like practically since the day he was born) and his Dad is just upset right now but he'll come to his senses later. I said, but what about the time your Mom tried to drown you? Or your Dad sent you to that queer camp? Because if that's them coming to their senses, then we're fucked, babe. He laughed because I guess he thought that was funny. And I guess it is too, in a really sick way. Life is pretty damn hilarious when you think about it.

After that we locked the door and proceeded to have loud, passionate sex. No, really! Right then right there. We were kind of stupid back then and in hindsight it looks a hell of a lot more stupid than it felt at the time (which was absolutely amazing by the way). I don't know if Mr. Stotch still remembers the sounds we made or the sounds he made when he heard us, but if he does then he's doing a bang up job of hiding it because I saw him at the bottle-return line at Wal-Mart instead of Clyde yesterday and he didn't look at me with any anger. He just stuffed his cans in the deposit and said, "I really do miss him, you know." I told him I knew. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and smiled all sad before walking away with his receipts. That's when I stopped wanting to hurt him. I ended the cycle.

So I've decided it's good to think about it. Because if I don't think then I keep all my thoughts bottled up inside and if I keep all my thoughts bottled up inside then I end up standing in the back room at work screaming and throwing shit and that doesn't get me anywhere except my ass thrown out on the curb. Then again when I do think about it I usually end up in my bedroom at home screaming and throwing shit and that doesn't get me anywhere except my ass thrown out on the curb either because my Dad says I should stop being a pussy. So it's a lose/lose situation no matter what but maybe dealing with death is always a lose/lose situation. Maybe there's no good way to deal with it. All I know is that every time I try to stop what I'm feeling, I see Mr. Stotch having to hook up with shady men in shadier places and coming home and getting mad at the world because his son is brave enough to live the life he was too scared to lead, and I don't want that. I know I don't want that. I don't want to have to pretend for the rest of my life that I don't feel what I feel.

-K

**xx.**

Today I did the worst thing I've ever done and oh fuck I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for this one.

Stan and Kyle called me three times this morning but I was dead with sleep and self-pity so they had to come over and physically haul me out of bed and get me some clothes and a shower and drive all of us down to Denny's. They said they missed me or how I used to be and they told me about something Cartman did the other day and I listened and ate everything on my plate for the first time in an eternity. After that we went to Mick's Lanes like we used to do and we just hung out. It was different in a good way. No one looked at me like a man drowning in a puddle of his own piss and they didn't bring any Kleenex either. By the time I got home around midnight my ribs hurt from laughing so much and my stomach was full and I felt like I could breathe again. I had fun. But then I saw the notebook on my bed and I thought of Butters and I realized it was the first time I had thought about him all day.

Then I just sat there on floor and put my face in my hands and cried and cried until all the good inside me from earlier went somewhere else and I was empty again but worse this time because I had done something so fucking terrible. I felt like I'd just stomped on all my memories of Butters and ripped them to shreds and danced on his grave. He was dead and he was always going to be dead and he never deserved to die but here I was, I was alive and I was laughing and I was happy and it was because of something other than Butters and I told myself I would never be happy without him but here I was and I had been happy and I didn't think about him _once_.

Now I've done a lot of bad things before but this one is by far the worst because I didn't do it on purpose. It wasn't a choice. I didn't wake up this morning and think to myself 'I'm going to have fun today and I'm going to be happy and not sad that Butters is dead' and gone out there and did it. I didn't even notice it happening until it was too late and that's what scares me out of my fucking mind. Because if I forget to think about Butters then I forget to miss Butters and then I might forget everything that made him Butters in the first place. Like maybe someday in the future I'll be getting a Grand Slam at Denny's with some coworkers and over the speakers they'll play "Pale Blue Eyes" and I'll hear it like I'm swimming underwater but I won't remember the way Butters' voice sounded when he sang it. And maybe one day I'll wake up in the morning and someone else will be in my bed and I'll know every part of their skin and won't think about the tiny beauty mark on Butters' shoulder or the way his nose would crinkle just a bit when he laughed. And maybe I won't remember how he made me feel like I could do anything, be anything, and I'll find this notebook under a pile of crap in the attic when I'm fifty years old and I'll flip through it and I'll remember writing it but I won't understand how I could have ever been so upset. I will see the words in my head but they'll be black and white photos of two strangers and I'll appreciate the beauty but I won't feel what they're feeling. Not even almost-'exactly'. And it's the scariest shit I've ever thought of.

Remember. REMEMBER.

-K

**xx.**

My boss gave me a week-long break because he says I'm too distracted and a hazard around the machinery and 'sorry for your loss'. And I agreed with him. I'm a hazard to everyone and myself. I'm a one man wrecking machine.

So because I don't have a job right now and because I don't want to be around Stan and Kyle or else they'll make me forget, I spend most of my time at home drinking and smoking and thinking of new ways to die. I've gone out and sat in the street and waited for one of the three working cars in my neighborhood to run me over but they never do. All the guns in the garage aren't there anymore and I haven't been able to die by accident or on purpose no matter how hard I try, and I really do try because I just need to see Butters again but it's like living in a fun house where everything's an illusion and nothing can hurt you and there's mirrors on all sides and your reflections are daring you to make a move. But I don't know what move to make or where I should go so I'm stuck here like Brian Wilson in my fun house and all I can do is spend my tickets and go on all the rides until there's no more left and maybe then I can leave. Maybe then I can go home.

-K

**xx.**

Last night I had the best/worst dream I've ever had. It's weird because I haven't dreamed or hell hardly slept in over a month since it happened but something must've just clicked last night because I had a dream and I'm still shaking from it.

I was somewhere and I can't tell you where it was but I can tell you what it was like. It was beautiful. It was blue and it was beautiful and it was sunny and everything was so bright I almost couldn't even see where I was going. But the most beautiful thing about it all was that Butters was there and he looked so young and exactly how I remembered him and he was brighter than anything I'd ever seen or anything I could ever imagine. God was he beautiful. So beautiful and so real. When he saw me he came up to me and didn't even say anything, just looked at me and smiled kind of sadly. Then he reached out and touched my face and I fell apart. I couldn't cry anymore because I had already cried all the tears out of me but I stood there and shook and it was nothing like it was supposed to be. I was supposed to find him there and wink at him and say something like 'I thought angels had wings?' and he'd blush a little like he always does when I flirt with him and we'd kiss and I'd sweep him off his feet and I'd take him back home with me. I was supposed to be Humphrey Bogart but instead I was just Kenny McCormick and Kenny McCormick couldn't do shit. Butters whispered, 'hey, hey', and wrapped his arms around me and damn it I was supposed to be the one comforting him!

I said that out loud and he laughed and pulled back a little, grinning at me. "I'm okay, Ken," he said, "And you're gonna be just fine, too."

I told him, No I won't.

"Yeah you will. Just trust me on this one. Okay?"

How do you know?

"'Cause I know you, Kenny, and I know you're a whole lot stronger than you think." He ran his thumb over my cheek and kissed me on the lips. I swear I can still feel that kiss right now while I'm writing this. It was a good one. You know it's a good one when you kiss until it feels like your lungs will collapse and your whole body is warm and there's nothing else except for them. Me and Butters, we kissed like all of that and more. We kissed like two people who were getting to kiss each other for the first time and we kissed like two people who were getting to kiss each other for the last time. We kissed like two people who would never kiss each other ever again because that's what we were.

I miss you so much, I told him.

"I miss you too."

I love you.

"I love you too, Kenny," he said.

And then I just started telling him everything. I told him about the notebook and the funeral and all the nice things everyone said about him there and seeing Clyde at Wal-Mart and not knowing how to tell if someone was being sincere or not and hearing "Pale Blue Eyes" in the car and wanting so badly just to talk to him again. He listened-listened like he did when he was alive and he hummed along and said things at the right parts and was silent during the right parts too. Then I thought about what had happened the other day with Stan and Kyle. I wasn't sure if I should tell him about that or leave it out. I still felt so fucking awful about it and I didn't want Butters thinking that maybe I didn't miss him or that I didn't love him enough because that just isn't true, that was pretty much the farthest thing from true, but I told him anyways because it wouldn't feel right not to. And he did something that took me by surprise. His eyes got all wet with tears and he started crying a bit and at first I thought oh shit maybe I shouldn't have told him that after all but then he was smiling and laughing and hugging me too and I realized they were happy tears. He was happy. He was happy that I went a whole day without thinking about him once or missing him even a little bit. And I couldn't figure out why. I still don't know.

So now I'm awake and some of the words are running together because my hand is shaking and I feel empty again. But it's a different kind of empty. It's the kind of empty that feels like it can be filled.

-K

**xx.**

Sorry. I don't know why I'm saying sorry. The only person who reads this damn thing is me anyways but I guess I'm apologizing to Stan and Kyle because they gave it to me and I haven't written anything in a couple weeks. Ah well.

Every day gets a little bit better. I still think about things probably way too much but that doesn't stop me from doing things too. It's like this: when I feel like a poor man lying in a puddle of his own piss or a hyperbola or screaming and throwing shit, I let that happen. For awhile I'll let myself feel all those things until they swell inside me like a good tumor and eventually they just bleed right out of me and I don't feel as bad as I did before. Then once I get all that shit out of my system I go to work and focus on whatever clunker I'm fixing up. Or I actually say hi to Clyde at the bottle return line. Or I have a few beers with Stan and Kyle and don't feel bad if I laugh until my face hurts. Right now it's kind of uneven but I'm trying really hard to balance it out. And hopefully someday I won't have to try to balance it out. Hopefully someday my emotions will actually know what the fuck they're doing and I won't have to remind myself to 'keep working' or to 'just let it out'. Hopefully someday things will change.

One thing that hasn't changed is that I still go to the cemetery about once a week. Sometimes I bring new flowers and sometimes I bring food and sometimes I bring nothing except myself because for some reason that was always enough for Butters. I stand there, watch the wind and the trees and the sun move over the mountains, listen to the far away sounds of someone somewhere being happy, smell the fall air that's closer than ever, and it helps me believe that things do change. Because at some point I won't be able to see the sun over the mountain, and those people that sound happy right now probably had some bad shit happen to them once or twice in their life, and in a few weeks summer will be gone and fall will be here. The Earth keeps on moving. Life doesn't stop for anyone or anything and neither should we.

For a long time I thought that was bad and I guess there's a part of me that still does. I thought changing and moving on was this awful awful thing because if I changed and if everything else around me changed then my feelings for Butters would change. And maybe they will. Not in a bad way. Just in a different way. Like maybe one day I'll be at a party and I'll meet someone who I'll end up kissing and we'll have our own song and we'll always listen to each other when they have something to say. And maybe one day I'll even think for months about proposing to them and I'll get down on the right knee at the right time and hopefully their parents will look at me with even 1/900th of the love that person looks at me with every day. And maybe I won't think about Butters almost every moment of every day and when I do think about him, it won't make me as sad as it makes me feel right now. That doesn't mean I won't miss him or that I won't love him. I think I always will. No – I know I always will. It'll just be a different kind of love. The kind of love that can't hold you or keep you warm at night but can always give you strength. Or at least, that's how I like to think of it.

But then again maybe none of this will happen. Maybe I'll end up with only a cell phone and a song and memories and too many regrets, like in my vision or nightmare of myself in the future. Anything can happen. I don't have the answers. Shit I've never had any answers for anything but I know a little about a few things and I know that I have to try to be happy no matter what. I have to keep pushing and keep living even when I don't want to anymore. I have to try. I have to. Because Butters would want it.

After my last entry I thought a fuck ton about my dream and why Butters acted the way he did. Why he was laughing and smiling and hugging me and crying happy tears when he had every right to be pissed off at me forever. And I realized: it's because I had been happy. Let me say that again: he was happy because I was happy. It's that goddamn simple. Butters was happy because for a few hours, I didn't torture myself over what happened to him. Butters was happy because for a few hours, I had been happier than I'd been for an entire month. It didn't make sense to me at first but I think I understand it now. Because when you're really in love with someone, their happiness makes you happy and their sadness makes you sad. But more than that, when they're hurting, you can bet that you'll be hurting a hundred times worse and working your ass off trying to make them happy again. You don't want them to ever hurt and you definitely don't want to be the reason they're hurting in the first place. Butters never wanted to hurt me. Not when he was alive and not when he was dead either. He wanted me to be happy even though he couldn't be the one to make me happy anymore. He wanted me to have a life and a future and a house even though he could never be the one to share it with me. And I think that makes sense. I'd want the same thing for him.

I don't know what'll happen to me or anyone else. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get everyone to huddle around their TV sets like they've done for their entire lives and see that the boy who taught them everything they knew about sex in elementary school and hardly said anything had thoughts and feelings and a life and a love too, just like them. I just don't know. No one does. But if all the people I've ever listened to decided to listen to me, really listen, I would tell them it's alright to feel like the lowest piece of shit for a long time and it's alright to feel happy again, too. And I would tell them that just because someone's heart stopped and you used to know what it felt like beating against your cheek or the skin on your palm, it doesn't mean that your life or your love for them has to stop too.

I stand at the cemetery. The sun is beating down over the mountains and the fall air is all around me. I feel everything. How happy Butters made me feel when he was alive. And how sad I was when he died. And everything in between that I've felt in the last three months and the 23 years before that. The good _and _the bad. And I only have one thought in my mind:

Nothing stops. Nothing ever stops.

-K


End file.
